Heather Huntington

ReelzChannel.com, April 11, 2008

In Chaos Theory, Ryan Reynolds (Definitely, Maybe, Smokin' Aces) stars as fastidious Frank Allen, author of a bestselling book about how to be efficient with your life by doing things like making lists on index cards of everything you want to accomplish with your day. And that strategy works well enough for him until his wife, Susan (Emily Mortimer) accidentally turns the clock backward instead of forward in an effort to give him an extra 10 minutes in a day, setting into place a chain of events that will tear his carefully constructed house of cards down and causing Frank to become unhinged.

Written by Daniel Taplitz (Commandments) and directed by Marcos Siega (Pretty Persuasion), Chaos Theory is a movie with a lot of problems. The sweet Emily Mortimer (Lars and the Real Girl, Match Point) is woefully miscast as the drop-dead amazing woman that all of Frank's friends want, and Stuart Townsend (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Head in the Clouds) doesn't seem to understand his role is that of the best friend, and continually tries to upstage Reynolds with his cheesy caricature of a slick ladies' man. There's definitely kernel of a good idea in Chaos Theory without question, but that kernel was much better suited to a big romantic comedy with some studio development than to a tiny indie. Instead the good ideas and good lines flounder and drown all the static, the story failing to build to anything worthwhile.

If, like me, you're drawn to this movie by the cute trailer and a love of Reynolds, think again. With his nice guy looks and just-snarky-enough delivery, Reynolds has some funny moments with which he does his best to try to save it things, but no amount of CPR can bring this dead fish of a movie back to life.

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